Attending the Cannes Film Festival is the dream of every filmmaker, and among the thousands who strive each year to achieve this major milestone, only a rare few succeed. This applies even more so to short films. Typically, around 5,000 short films are submitted to Cannes each year, but only a small number are accepted. This year, one of these selected films is The Playground (Zamin-e Bazi) by Amirhossein Shojaei, which was featured in the Special Screenings section of Cannes Classics. Saeed Roustayi, the well-known Iranian director who previously attended Cannes with Leila’s Brothers and Just 6.5, produced The Playground and also traveled to Cannes for it.
This is Shojaei’s second short film; two years ago, he attended the Locarno Film Festival with his debut film, The Guard (Negahban), where he received the Medien Patent Prize. However, he has over 15 years of experience in Iranian cinema photography and even won a Crystal Simorgh in this field in 2016 for the film Subdued (Rag-e Khab). The acquaintance between Shojaei and Roustayi dates back to his photography work on Roustayi’s films, ranging from Life and a Day (Abad va Yek Rooz), Roustayi’s debut film in 2016, to the two aforementioned films at Cannes. Shojaei had also previously come to Cannes with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero (Ghahreman), making this his fourth appearance at the festival: three times as a photographer and now as a director.
